


Black Hole on Krownest

by MAXiMINalist



Series: History (and Legends) of Clan Wren [2]
Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Child Soldier, Krownest, Mandalore, Mandalorians - Freeform, Other, Set after Sabine Wren's banishment, insinuated command to commit matricide, insinuated gun violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-05-28 06:57:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15043268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MAXiMINalist/pseuds/MAXiMINalist
Summary: "Tristan Wren, this is my order. If Governor Saxon sees me fit to execute, you will fire at me."After Countess Sabine Wren fled Krownest, Count Tristan Wren is left as the succeeding heir to Clan Wren's throne and stands at the mercy of a rite-of-passage conducted by his mother.





	Black Hole on Krownest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ncfan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ncfan/gifts), [EyeLoch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EyeLoch/gifts).



> [Originally published on Tumblr.](https://spaceasianmillennial.tumblr.com/post/174641497566/one-shot-black-hole-on-krownest) Revised here.

The Countess’s hand rose like a conductor. This was the signal for the rest of Clan Wren to vacate the area. Though the Countess locked her eyes on the last surviving heir, a silent command that her son would not leave the room. 

 

 

Even though his kneecaps flinched, he glued himself into place, knowing that it was only him in the room who should stay here on his knees in a prolonged bow. 

Not that there wasn’t a silent defiance. Only one raise of her hand and Clan Wren knew to leave. But Count Alrich stayed seated on the bench throne, inches next to his Countess, yet so remote, intent on keeping the small empty space between him and his wife, not wanting to widen the gap, but to maintain her at arms-length. It took the Countess’s hand reaching out and - not harshly but not tenderly either - sweeping his shoulder for Count Alrich to step down. Once he was down the steps and before his evacuation, the older Count allowed a glance at his son, who hoped for an answer. But all the boy could see was an unspeaking mask of rigid shock and a pitiful grimace that whispered,  _My son, I am powerless to you._

Once the elder Count vanished from the space, the younger Count remained there, staring at his mother.

Countess Ursa gave a mild throat clear, her way of predicating a serious order.

“Tristan Wren, the entirety of Clan Wren owes at debt to you.”

Tristan waited a few seconds, before he was sure he wouldn’t mumble, to reply, “Yes, Mother.”

“You are fortunate that Gar Saxon sees potential in you.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Gar Saxon has shown us mercy out of the goodness of Clan Saxon’s heart. But you have  _earned_  his respect, a place in his favor.” Her boots thumped down the steps in a decisive rhythm, thunking into Tristan’s ears, before he knew it, she was staring down at him.

“I did my best, Mother.”

“Tristan Wren, you may rise.” 

He obeyed, the ceiling sinking toward him.

Countess Ursa slid her hand to the pistol at her right hip, and delicately lifted it from the holster with two fingers, at the safe non-wielding slant.

She dangled the pistol in front of Tristan and he realized it was his now. He cupped out his hands so she could let it drop onto his. Years ago, he glowered with envy at the blasters in his mother’s holster, when the Unsayable Name - Sabine - was permitted to wield them during training, and he conspired that one day he would have his mother’s special weapons. 

But today, the metal felt cold in his hands.

“I do not have to ask you if you know that everything you do, is for Clan Wren. What you’ll do for Gar Saxon is for Clan Wren.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“What I do for Gar Saxon is for Clan Wren.” That was her affirmation. Then she added, “Repeat after me.”

The words forced themselves out of his throat, “What I do for Saxon- Gar Saxon… is for f-family.” He tried not to bite his lips at this flub, though his mother’s brow rose stoically at this.

“Tristan Wren, I am pleased that you understand this. But are you ready for this one command I will give you?”

“Yes.” That’s how you always respond at tests. A “no”, even honest, was cowardice. But even an aunt once told him, _knowing you’re not ready is the start of a yes, that you know of the danger ahead even if you don’t see it._

“Gar Saxon is merciful. But he has the license to execute us if we do wrong by him. Do wrong by him, we do wrong by Clan Wren. So if you do wrong,” she gave a flap of the hand, to beckon an answer. It was an old coaching game Mother used to play with the Unsayable Name when she was five, where she would finish her sentences for her so that the minds of a Chieftain and successor can synchronize (”Sabine, the Countess will not stand for… Sabine, the best course of action would be to… Sabine, when you go to the Academy, Clan Wren depends on you to…”). Mother had played the game with him too, though less frequently.

Tristan finished, “I get executed.”

“If I, Countess of Clan Wren, do wrong…”

“You will get executed.”

“And if I am executed and Gar decides it is fit for you to keep standing…”

“I am- will be, Clan Wren’s leader.”

“Let me know if you are capable.” Now Ursa’s hand touched the pistol loitering on Tristan’s extended palms, as her hand tendered closed Tristan’s finger over the gun.

“Tristan Wren, you will always choose family.” Ursa’s hands maneuvered delicately, like an artist molding their clay statue into a desired posture, her fingers moving Tristan’s hand and the gun, so that now the boy held the gun in a firing position, though aimed harmlessly at the floor.

“This is my command. If Saxon sees me fit to execute me, you will fire at me."

Tristan swallowed. He stared so intensely into his mother’s eyes that he did not notice or feel when her hand reached out to level his aim toward her heart. 

“I command you to shoot.”

If only he could drop the gun, give Mother his decision, but he was too stiff.

“If I can’t give you the reasons, it should come to you. But Tristan, you will shoot me because you choose family.”

His lips quivered, swallowing his protests.

“Tristan, be a warrior and choose family. ”

“Where’s father?” the boy blurted out, forefinger tingling on the trigger, as he imagined his mother lying on the floor below the throne.

“Tristan Wren, by the honor of Mandalore,” her voice crescendoed, “we serve the strongest and if Saxon, the strongest, deems me unfit, one fallen Wren is nothing compared to an extinct Clan Wren.”

“I want father!” Tristan’s finger danced on the trigger enough to feign obedience but he did not press.

_“Are you strong enough to let go of me like I have let go of Sab-”  
_

The red escaped from the barrel in her son’s hand, the haste of the flash blurring the moment, the dance of the chaos, as Ursa gasped. Tristan’s shriek did not escape him in time before the blast pierced his mother. If the boy could have processed the impact as rapid as a shooting star, he would have seen that she recoiled a few inches, eyes snapped shut, expectant with her fate yet graceless in her flinch, as she swept her right boot back to salvage a semblance of balance.

What was left was the incorrigible whimpers of the boy staring into the smoking black hole at the heart of his mother’s armor, and his gun still in the air. Years of target practice stiffened his hand enough that he could not drop the gun - or else lose or suffer consequences in the combat zone. As the smoke taunted his nostrils, he realized he had been semi-aware that she had handed him a training pistol but it had been proper to believe – let himself be persuaded – it had been candid and fatal.

“At ease,” her voice sinking in the tone of the lullabies she used to sing to him and Sabine. Her brows raised with an inquisitiveness that suggested fascination, not disappointment, with his numerous failings - The hesitation, the shot fired not with precision but provocation, from his outbursts of remorse, with no measure of intents.

Tristan had no holster. He let the weapon drop from his hands with a defiant clatter on the metallic floor.

She lowered down. At first, he assumed she would reclaim her weapon. But she did not. She remained on the ground, in a prolonged bow, which echoed a farewell gesture she gave Sabine before she flew off to the Academy.

“Count Tristan Wren, my successor. You’ll know what to do.”

He suddenly wanted to help his mother back to her feet. He extended his hand toward her.

She accepted his hand, not for aid, but to press her forehead against his knuckles, her dark sliver-streaked hair cushioning against his flesh, something never choreographed in any of Clan Wren’s practices.

* * *

The snow of Krownest clattered against the walls, like fingernails scratching to penetrate the warmth of the stronghold.

Anxious that the beasts could scrape their way through the metal, Tristan tried to listen to the gentle snores, of which belonged to his father, who slept a few feet away on the spare cot. 

The boy promised himself and Mother to forgo childish acts, but since he could not stop thinking of the imaginary phantoms breaking in, the young Count slipped out of bed, made his way to the spare cot where his father slept, and pressed himself against his father’s chest. Though asleep, Alrich welcomed his son into an embrace as if a father knew his son even without being able to see him. Tristan pressed himself to his father’s heartbeats, in their current tune of peace, but the boy could still smell the charred _beskar_ on his mother’s heart.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments appreciated


End file.
